Hello,

first of all, thank You for UBCD, it is a great tool.

And now here is my problem:

I need to run UBCD on the "Averatec C3500" laptop. The version 3.3 boots fine up to the menu, but when trying to start any application, it freezes with the following message:

ISOLINUX 3.07 03/01/2005
isolinux: Found something at drive = 90

and after that, I can only reboot.

Trying to resolve this problem on my own, I found isolinux at http://syslinux.zytor.com/iso.php and noticed, that there is a newer version (3.11) of it. According to the changelog, the recent versions have some BIOS workarounds implemented, so I wanted to give it a try. I downloaded the isolinux (syslinux) 3.11 and had no clue how to upgrade the isolinux in the UBCD. Somehow I discovered, that the following two files correspond:

UBCD <-> syslinux

\BOOT\MODULES\ISOLINUX.CSM <-> \syslinux-3.11\isolinux-debug.bin
\ISOLINUX\MEMDISK <-> \syslinux-3.11\memdisk\memdisk

And so, I replaced the "old" files with the "new" ones (changing the filenames, of course), BUT... now the system does not freeze (is that a sign of improvement?), but I get the following error message:

Error: Unknown command entered.
[Command: isolinux] [Line: 50.2] [File: mboard.scn]

/boot/menus>_

The system does not freeze, but I don't know how to proceed or what mistake did I make e.g. what should I do next to be able to test the new version of isolinux. Could You please comment on this?

Thank You,

Alex

P.S. Should there not be a bit more of information about isolinux on the UBCD website?

> The system does not freeze, but I don't know how to proceed
> or what mistake did I make e.g. what should I do next to be
> able to test the new version of isolinux. Could You please
> comment on this?
>
> Thank You,
>
> Alex
>
> P.S. Should there not be a bit more of information about
> isolinux on the UBCD website?

The reason you don't see much information on isolinux on
the UBCD site is that we use CDShell, which uses a modified
form of isolinux/memdisk. Visit www.cdshell.org for more
information on that program. We don't have much CDShell info
because we point people to cdshell.org for those questions.

Isolinux knows nothing of .scn files, this is CDShell (and
in fact, the extension .scn is arbitrary).

Here is what you can try:

- Don't replace any files in /boot
- Extract the new isolinux to /isolinux
(Don't overwrite isolinux.cfg)
- Modify the .scn files; for example:
In mboard.scn, line 52 from:
if ($lastKey == key[a]); then memdisk \images\mprime.igz
to
if ($lastKey == key[a]); then /isolinux/isolinux.bin memdisk
/images/mprime.igz
or
if ($lastKey == key[a]); then /isolinux/isolinux.bin memdisk
initrd=/images/mprime.igz
or
** if ($lastKey == key[a]); then bcdw Boot /isolinux/isolinux.bin
/isolinux/memdisk initrd=/images/mprime.igz

The reason I have so many "or"s is that I'm not sure the exact syntax, so
you may
have to try a few. Point is you're trying to avoid using the internal
"isolinux" and "memdisk"
binaries, and want to try the external ones in /isolinux. ** (Might want to
try this one first).

Now I'm getting the image. UBCD uses CD Shell and CD Shell uses isolinux. While UBCD uses non-modified version of CD Shell via the scripting interface, the CD Shell uses modified version of isolinux. This modification is spread around in the source code of isolinux, and that discourages me a whole lot, because these modifications aren't documented at all. Since I never compiled anything under linux nor messed with a source code, it seems it will be better for me to give up right now and search for another solution, before I waste too much time.

If You think that there may be another way to work around the source code modification, I'll be glad to know. Or, do You think that - despite of the above - Your suggested solutions may work? To me, it does not seem very probable...

In the meantime I will be watching out for a new version of CD Shell.

Thank You anyway for responding to my question!

Alex

> the source code of isolinux, and that discourages me a whole
> lot, because these modifications aren't documented at all.

The modifications to isolinux are indeed documented, in fact,
some of the best I've seen. All source code modified by the
CDShell author is commented with his initials. Of course, this
documentation is in the source code, mostly assembler. There
are also changelogs on cdshell.org. For open-source (and even
non open-source), Mike provides excellent documentation.

> Since I never compiled anything under linux nor messed with a
> source code, it seems it will be better for me to give up
> right now and search for another solution, before I waste too
> much time.
>
> If You think that there may be another way to work around the
> source code modification, I'll be glad to know. Or, do You
> think that - despite of the above - Your suggested solutions
> may work? To me, it does not seem very probable...

The solution I gave you requires no "source code" modification,
only "configuration file" modification. Do I think my suggestions
will work? Yes. I've used updated version of isolinux with CDShell/
UBCD with no problems.

OK, I am trying it out.

> - Don't replace any files in /boot

I am starting with original UBCD 3.3

> - Extract the new isolinux to /isolinux
> (Don't overwrite isolinux.cfg)

Now there is a problem. In the isolinux (e.g. syslinux 3.11) directory structure, there are a lot of files in the root directory, among others the isolinux.bin and isolinux-debug.bin. But, there is also a directory named "memdisk" which is conflicting with the existing file "memdisk" from the original UBCD disk. Since You said:

> Point is you're trying to avoid using the internal
> "isolinux" and "memdisk" binaries, and want to try
> the external ones in /isolinux.

I have decided to make a new directory for the new isolinux/syslinux directory tree, name it "syslinux", and copy the new files there. I hope this was not wrong.

Then, I modified the "custom.scn" file using all three possibilities that You have proposed. Of course, I remembered to change the path accordingly (isolinux->syslinux). After making a ISO file and burning it, this was the result:

1) Using "/syslinux/isolinux.bin memdisk /images/pm70.ima"

Error message:

Error: Unknown command entered.
[Command: /syslinux/isolinux.bin] [Line: 47.2] [File: custom.scn]

(dropping to console)

2) Using "/syslinux/isolinux.bin memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima"

Error message:

Error: Unknown command entered.
[Command: /syslinux/isolinux.bin] [Line: 47.2] [File: custom.scn]

(dropping to console)

3) Using "bcdw Boot /syslinux/isolinux.bin /syslinux/memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima"

Displays splash screen "Troubleshooting insert bootup [...]"
Below that, text:

INSERT v1.2.14 - UBCD insert
F2 for additional cheatcodes.
boot: /syslinux/memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima
Could not find kernel image: /syslinux/memdisk
boot:_

At this prompt, i have typed: /isolinux/memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima

and...

IT WORKED!!!

So, the correct line in the menu file is probably:

bcdw Boot /syslinux/isolinux.bin /isolinux/memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima

or

bcdw Boot /syslinux/isolinux.bin /syslinux/memdisk/memdisk initrd=/images/pm70.ima



Now I am going to try to modify the menu file and burn a new UBCD disc. I wonder if I need to modify all menu files to be able to use all other preinstalled programs...

I will probably try some more.


P.S. The first time I was modifying UBCD, I have used ISOBuster to extract files from the UBCD image file. Somehow all extracted directory and file names were uppercase (and 8+3), which did not bother me. After the modification, I was able to make the ISO image using the mkisofs command as specified on the UBCD homepage without any errors. The filename conversion apparently took place while extracting files.

Now, since I wanted everything to be perfect, I used daemon tools 4.0 to extract files from the UBCD image file, and this time the extracted files were mixed upper-/lowercase, and partially with long filenames. But, when I use mkisofs on these files, I get a lot of messages about renaming files, which apparently don't have 8+3 names. Even more strange, mkisofs is processing a directory which I cannot see: "./rr_moved". I hope that this does not influence the functionality of the UBCD disk. You can see the output of mkisofs here: http://www.ambinet.de/mkisofs.txt

Is the mkisofs command line on the UBCD homepage correct? Somehow I cannot figure out how the downloadable UBCD image file has been made using the given mkisofs command line.